How to Celebrate Your Birthday in Quarantine

Every single day so far during this corona-cation has been absolutely meaningless, which is especially devastating for those of us celebrating the beginning of a new year in our lives. Normally, that is, when we are not being pent up inside to contain the spread of a viral pandemic, birthdays are cause for celebration. You go outside (scandalous, I know), be with your loved ones and have a great time. Now, on the other hand, you might be able to eat some cake or work on a puzzle with your immediate family (if you haven’t already locked yourself in your room to avoid hanging out with them), but for the most part, birthdays in quarantine are only an additional boring, droning day to add on to all the others that make time feel absolutely meaningless. That’s not to say that birthdays aren’t fun anymore, because they can still be still exciting regardless of what you’ve done to your hair or the number of TikTok workouts you’ve failed to complete. Sometimes you just gotta make your own excitement to make the big day stand out a little. Take it from me, my birthday was last week and I still managed to have a mildly okay time. So, without further ado, I present to you a definitive how-to guide that will give you what you need to have an amazing birthday during quarantine.

Sleep in. For everyone’s sake, take the couple extra hours to wake up refreshed and feeling great.

Hope that your family has whipped up some amazing breakfast for you, ready and hot at the kitchen counter waiting. In the more likely scenario that nobody bothered to do that, make yourself one of the best meals you have ever had in your entire life. Not only will that take up some time and keep you entertained, but it will also guarantee that you start the morning off right.

Talk to your friends. I completely understand how utterly draining it can be to spend every waking moment with the same people. So, on your special day, you get to pick who you want to socialize with. Completely ignore your siblings for all I care, but I would definitely recommend talking to your friends and the people you haven’t seen in forever. Whether it’s zoom or facetime, you deserve having the conversations you want to have and to see the people you want to see.

Don’t do any chores. I’m sure your parents are taking this opportunity to give your house that deep clean they always said they would get around to doing. And, if your family is anything like mine, a second on the couch is a second wasted from doing the dishes or the laundry. But it’s your birthday, so don’t do any of that. One of the greatest gifts is the freedom to just sit there while everyone else in the family cleans up after dinner.

And finally, start planning the real celebration you are going to have once this is all over. Sure, it’s fun to have the day to yourself and spend it the way you want, but it’s also great to have a party and get gifts and actually be in the same room as your friends. So, just wait a little until you can spend your birthday in style. Think about your actual day in quarantine as more of a prep time for your birthday later on.Then again, it is also totally reasonable to just completely postpone your birthday in general and choose to have it at another time so that your day isn’t restricted by stay at home orders or life-threatening viruses.

No matter how you chose to spend your birthday, just know that by staying inside and compromising some fun and partying to help halt the spread of the virus, you are doing something very respectable and are absolutely deserving of all the pampering when your birthday celebration does come along.While it is your special day, everyone appreciates you still thinking about those at-risk and choosing to remain in quarantine. Also, happy birthday, by the way!